Juror #10

Yesterday I said my chances of being seated on the jury were small. That was true. It's also true that chances are small if you have 10 pairs of socks in a dryer and not having a matching pair until you've found your 11th sock.

Because the chances of an event happening are small doesn't mean it won't happen.

The jury selection process is interesting. Well, dull, mostly. This is going to be a long trial so they collected a large pool of prospective jurors.

They put 12 people in the jury box and six on uncomfortable chairs in front of the jury box. They then asked all the people in the 18 seats many probing questions to try to find out whether either side thought anyone might not be a good juror for their side. They then executed their peremptory challenges, thanking and excusing potential jurors from the jury box. When someone was dismissed, the leftmost person in the row in front of the jury box took the excused person's place. When all of the front row people had been moved to the jury box and another person was thanked and excused, seven more people were called to fill the empty seats.

The seven new people were then asked questions. Fewer questions than before. Seven people were thanked and excused and they did it over and over again. Each cycle had fewer questions asked than before.

Just before lunch the second day of this long process my name was called as the person to fill the empty seat in the jury box and six others got called for the front row. The defense attorney asked my group simply whether we'd like a person like ourselves on a jury should we ever be on trial. The Deputy D.A. asked simply if anybody had anything to volunteer. They were as tired of the process as the rest of us. Or each side was satisfied with the other 11 people and that they'd take their chances with me.

I was sworn in.

After lunch they selected the alternate jurors and testimony began.

I guess that's all the jury experience you're going to hear about from me for three or four weeks.

Jury Duty

I spent two hours in the jury lounge and the rest of the day in a courtroom watching the voir dire process. They plan to have a jury seated by lunchtime tomorrow. They have a large pool of potential jurors since it's going to be a fairly long trial (probably going to last till September 5). My chances of getting on the jury are rather small.

Turtle Tchotchke Tuesday

A kite brought back from Poss and the girls' 2007 trip to China.


Thanks, Xian, for finding it and lugging it back!

Sexism

Let's dig a little deeper into my storehouse of grudges.

When I was going through elementary school we had an annual citywide track meet where the fastest, or otherwise most athletic, kids would represent their classrooms in various track and field events. With any luck our classroom's entrants would bring home a ribbon.

One year, the fifth grade, I think, I got to run in the 50 yard dash. I think I was eliminated in the first heat. But I was the fastest boy in my classroom in short distance running! I had no expectation that I'd get a ribbon.

Boys and girls didn't compete against each other. Except for a few events, they don't compete against each other in the Olympics. But I had a little problem with that notion back then.

There was a boys-only event and a girls-only event. The boys had the Football Throw. Big whoop! Throwing footballs was something I had never considered being a worthwhile use of my time.

The girls got to compete in the Jump Rope. The competition was simply who could skip the rope the greatest number of times in something like 30 seconds.

I was the champion rope jumper in my fifth grade classroom. I wasn't a girl so I couldn't compete in that event of the track meet.

No fair!

I'm sore to this day.

I really wasn't a champion rope jumper. I could turn my own rope and jump very fast. But I never could do the Double Dutch. I never figured out how to get started. I would always snag one of the ropes.

I really wanted to jump Double Dutch. That is what really is gnawing at me after all these years.

Turtle Tchotchke Tuesday

Some netsukes from Peggy.

Copper Canyon

I've been bewildered about the trip we took to Chihuahua, Mexico, all those years ago to take the train through the Copper Canyon. Once we got to Chihuahua it was decided that we'd rather just take in the history and scenery of Chihuahua and not bother with the train trip.

I've been wondering all these years why we didn't do what was supposed to be the whole point of the trip. Was it money? Did we kids rack up too many demerits on the way down? Were there terrorist threats to blow up the train?

I suppose I do have memories from that trip that few people have:

• Touring Pancho Villa's house, shown by his actual widow!, including his Death Car.
• Seeing "Aeropuerto" in English with Spanish subtitles. What I found most interesting about that experience was that the reactions of the people reading the subtitles happened at different times than the for the people listening to the English soundtrack.
• Eating on a ghastly 50-pound bag of cacahuates. We lugged that huge burlap sack of burnt peanuts all the way home and I kept eating them for a while (they were peanuts, after all!).
• Touring some hacienda. I don't remember whose it was.
• Not getting Montezuma's Revenge (ah, the advantages of not eating indigenous foods).

But those memories really don't make up for not seeing what I understood was some spectacular scenery. And a train trip, even it didn't have much scenery, would have had a lot of appeal to a 15 year old.

Somehow I don't see myself going down there and taking the train. I'll never know what I missed.

Intuition, Take 2

As promised a few days ago, here are some pictures of Destiny Allison's "Intuition" taken with sharper light. I suppose the flat lighting from the other day works, too, but shadows help a sculpture.

Here's the view from the living room.

And a closer view. I used the flash to fill in the top part that was still in the eaves' shadow. The shadow of the house is coming in at the bottom. I guess I'll have to wait till winter to get the top and bottom fully sunlit at the same time.

And a closer view, this time with no flash. Now the shadow of the backyard ash tree is starting to show up.

With people stealing metals to take to unscrupulous recyclers I didn't want to leave this metal secured only by two easily removed bolts and nuts. (People have stolen bronze grave markers and recyclers have taken them!) So I drilled a hole through the mounting bracket and the part of the sculpture that is mounted to it and put a gnarly padlock on it. I hope I didn't ruin the piece! There are already two holes drilled through these pieces for the bolts. The lock isn't terribly intrusive even when looking from the side. It blends in with the brackets pretty well.

Mom asked for a closer view of the piece by Jason Mernick. It's stainless steel cut with a torch and colored with powder coating. The streaks are ground into the steel and are reflecting the sun. It changes as you move around it and as the sun moves.